CAA Championships

The 16th edition of the CAA Championships ended yesterday. South Africa topped the medal table with 22 (12g, 2s, 8b), Nigeria were second with 19 (7g, 7s, 5b) , Ethiopia third with 15 (6g, 6s, 3b) and Kenya fourth with 16 (5g, 5s, 6b).

Having spoken to one of the Kenyan coaches at length on Saturday, he told me that he was expecting Kenyan to win gold in the women's 800m despite the presence of the Maputo Express aka Maria Mutola. Pamela Chelimo turned on the afterburners with 200m to go to fulfill her coach's prediction. She then ran a storming leg in the 4x400m to earn Kenya a silver medal. A former African junior champion at 400m, she's one to watch in Beijing. It was good to see Kenya with a 200m sprint finalist by the name Joyce Zachary and the coach said that there should be more of them by the time the next World Athletics Championships come round. To the dismay of my Nigerian companion, Nigeria only won a bronze in the women's 200m, South Africa claimed the men and women's 200m crowns. However, Nigeria dominated the women's shot put, winning gold and silver.

Botswana's Kgosiema Kabelo put on a masterful display in the high jump, entering the competition at 2.24m and winning the event with a world class 2.34m which was also a national record.

Tirunesh Dibaba led Ethiopia's clean sweep of the women's 10,000m and for 25 laps, the stadium pulsated to the wall of the sound generated by the 35,000 capacity crowd - it was a sight to behold, seeing the crowd "bouncing". On the decibel scale, the women's 10,000m was off the charts, closely followed by the men's 5,000m where Kenenisa Bekele held off Kenya's Isaac Songok to take gold. Kenya got a measure of revenge in the men's 1,500m, winning gold and silver.

Just before the men's 5,000m, Haile Gebrselassie was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from Leeds Metropolitan University and he interrupted his lap of honour to give Kenenisa a hub and no doubt, a few words of encouragement.

I had an illuminating tête-à-tête with Nigeria's African 100m champion, Olusoji Fasuba, and he dropped a few bombshells. To quote Dwain Chambers, "if the drug users have an off day", then I expect Olu to do the business in Beijing.

Kenya is set to host the next edition of the CAA championships and they have a lot to live upto.

Maria Mutola, Mastercard and me

Disclaimer: The use of Mastercard in the title of this posting is to provide context and in no way represents an endorsement. However,

Lets just say that Mastercard still has some way to go in making its presence felt in Addis Ababa. Thus far, the Addis Ababa Hilton is the only place I've found in Addis Ababa that envelopes Mastercard in a loving embrace. So it was there that I found myself earlier this morning, hoping to do a forex transaction and looking for Nike ankle support socks in their "sports shop". It turned out that the only socks they stocked were Wilson and the bank's network was down, so disappointed I headed for the lobby to plan my next move. A phone call later and I was heading out of the hotel when I encountered the living legend that is Maria de Lurdes Mutola, who's here for the 16th CAA African Athletics Championships. For the next 5 minutes, we chatted Osaka, Beijing, Janet Jepkosgei, Kenya and South Africa, and as is the 21st century thing, I snapped her on my mobile phone.

To Maria, thanks for your time today, all the best for Saturday and here's to hoping you bow out on high in Beijing.